Time cover story on The School That Will Get You a Job. This would be a great advocacy issue for the GHP: getting more of these career-oriented, 6-year P-Tech high schools in Houston (they’re being pioneered in Chicago and New York). One of the things they mention in the article is that the P-tech model works best with blue chip Fortune 500 corporate support - not as much financial, but in shaping the curriculum, providing student mentors, and offering jobs to graduates (IBM drives the ones in the article). With the #2 concentration of F500s in the country, it seems like it would be a really good fit for us...

Speaking of the GHP, congrats to Patrick Jankowski over there for a very impressive job growth forecast last year. In December 0f 2012, he forecast that Houston would create 76,000 jobs in 2013. With the release of the benchmark revisions on Friday, we learned that Houston created 76,200 jobs. His forecast was off by only 200 jobs, essentially a rounding error in an economy with 2.8 million in nonfarm payroll employment. Not bad. Let me know Patrick if you decide to apply your forecasting skills to the stock market... ;-)

Sunday, March 09, 2014

Houston the capital of the Sunbelt, ship channel booming, land of liberty, only in Houston developments, top tech exporter, and more

Before we get to this week's misc items, a hearty happy birthday to Houston Strategies, which is 9 years old this week. When I started I had no idea I'd be able to keep it up this long, but now I'm looking forward to another great year and the 10th birthday next year. As always, thank for your readership.

"The clear economic capital of the Sunbelt is now Houston, with some stiff competition from Dallas-Ft. Worth. Houston, the energy capital, now ranks second only to New York in new office construction and is the overall number one for corporate expansions. There are fifty new office buildings going up in the city, including Exxon Mobil’s campus, the country’s second largest office complex under construction (after New York’s Freedom Tower). Chevron, once Standard Oil of California, has announced plans to construct a second tower for its downtown Houston campus while Occidental Petroleum, founded more than fifty years ago in Los Angeles, is moving its headquarters to Houston."Concluding:
"Combined with basics like lower housing costs and taxes, it’s a common optimism about the future that really underlies the resurgence now occurring from Phoenix to Tampa. The long-term shifts in American power and influence that have been underway since the 1950s have not been halted by the housing bust. Disdained by urban aesthetes, hated by much of the punditry, and largely ignored except for their failings in the media, the Sunbelt seems likely to enjoy the last laugh when it comes to shaping the American future."

World magazine's cover story on Houston from a Christian angle, which is not one I've seen before: "Houston: A semisweet land of liberty - The U.S. economy is bogged down, but Houston is growing rapidly, looking past problems, and proclaiming, ‘You CAN make it here.’

"All this doesn't just bring in new arrivals - native Texans aren't leaving the state either. It is the "stickiest" state in the country, according to the latest figures from the Pew Research Center, which suggest that more than three-quarters of adults born in Texas still live there."

"The common refrain made against Texas by those who defend the status quo in Illinois is that the jobs being created in the Lone Star State are lower-paying and less-rewarding opportunities.

But not anymore. Texas is now unquestionably besting Illinois in providing for the middle class.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2012 the inflation-adjusted median household income for Texas surpassed that of Illinois for the first time since 1984, when the statistic first started being recorded.

That means the household making the median income in Texas is taking home a bigger paycheck than the household making the median income in Illinois."

Finally, to see a side of Houston most people don't, check out Beyonce's new "No Angel" music video, filmed mostly around the Third Ward.

About Me

Social Systems Architect and entrepreneur with a genuine love of my hometown. I cover a wide range of topics in this blog - including transportation, transit, economic development, quality-of-life, city identity, and development and land-use regulations - and have published numerous Houston Chronicle op-eds on these topics. I'm a Founding Senior Fellow with the Center for Opportunity Urbanism and co-authored the original study with noted urbanist Joel Kotkin and others, creating a city philosophy around upward social mobility for all citizens as an alternative to the popular smart growth, new urbanism, and creative class movements. I am a native Houstonian, 6th-generation Texan, attended Rice University for my BSEE and MBA, and a former McKinsey consultant and adjunct faculty member with Leadership Houston. I am currently the founder of Coached Schooling, pioneering a transformational new approach for a more effective and engaging 21st-century K-12 education combining the best elements of eLearning, home and traditional schooling. CONTACT EMAIL: tgattis (at) pdq.net - send me an email if you would like to receive these posts via email, or see the Google Groups signup box below.